ASSOCIAZIONE ARTE E MUSICA was born in February 2011, and started activities with the first edition of Festival di musica da camera “Concerti alCastello 2011”, a chamber music festival held in the wonderful house inhabited in the past by Massimiliano and Carlotta of Austria.

Concerti al Castello then became a regular appointment with chamber music in Trieste: a dozen concerts on Saturday of the spring months to combine a visit to the castle and the park with the music, in a magnificent setting full of history and spearhead among the beauties of Trieste and the region. The Throne Room where the concerts take place is the main hall of the castle, richly decorated and double height, with Gothic spires hanging from the ceiling and excellent acoustics all covered in wood: 80 seats room.

"Concerts at the Castle" takes what was a typical tradition in the ‘800 that is, the music in living rooms, in this case in the finest drawing room in the city. Cancelling the distance between performers and audience, which is usual in the concert halls, encourages interaction and intimacy created between the audience and the artists, offering the thrill of live concert in the fullest way, by participating in first person.

Miramare Castle - Trieste

Maximilian of Habsburg, brother of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph, during a stay in the city earlier so-called Empire’s Harbour, had identified the magnificent site where to build his dwelling was a rocky promontory, then almost devoid of vegetation that overlooked the Gulf of Trieste.

Buying it in 1855, wanted to turn it into a garden of 22 acres with many plants and trees also exotic: an experimental botanical station, but above all a place of deep meditation, a space where art and nature use to meet. Miramare Castle nestled in the beautiful park surrounding it is now the only place that memories Massimiliano, almost the mirror of his personality and his passions. The Castle lays on a fantastic panoramic location, on the tip of the promontory that juts into the Gulf of Trieste and the sea surrounding it and that is visible from nearly every room. Unique testimony of a luxurious noble house of 1800 preserved with its original interior furnishings, has in the past repeatedly hosted the Habsburg rulers, including the Princess Sissi, and is now one of the most visited tourist sites in Italy.